You will have no doubt of heard countless horror stories about teaching during your training, and been given advice such as, don't smile before Christmas, and shouting is the best method of classroom management, as is shows you are in control and will frighten the student into working. Neither of these are true or should be endorsed.

The following are snippets of advice I would give to new teachers entering the profession that will enable you to progress towards becoming the best teacher you can, and enjoy your chosen career choice. I truly believe teaching is one of the most rewarding vocations that exists, students will surprise you every day with their outlook on life and conceptions. It is a profession that will keep you young, challenge you every day, and make you smile.

1. Pedagogy practice - approach all new theories and school initiatives with an open mind. Staffrooms are full of cynical folk who emanate negativity towards anything new. Form your own opinion based upon your experiences an practice

2. Become involved in the school community– make a point of introducing yourself to the staff, visit the staff room regularly. All too often staff huddle in their own areas and it’s too easy to just converse with your department. Join the staff sports teams, go for a drink after work on Friday with your colleagues, they will become your closest allies and friends. Volunteer to assist with clubs and trips, get to know the students who you don’t teach, one day you may, and these relationships are invaluable. 3. Cherish the positives– keep all cards, gifts, letters of thanks from parents, staff and SLT and tokens of appreciations close by. This will remind you that you are making a difference, you are valued, and what can seem like a thankless vocation at times is worthwhile and highly important.

4. Be tidy, be organised – having a clean and tidy learning environment portrays a sense of pride and care. A classroom with visual and captivating displays, not only provides stimulation for the students but instills a positive learning purpose. Ensure all graffiti and vandalism is removed and fixed, the broken window theory is very relevant to teaching, and if left will only encourage more undesirable conduct. Make good use of your planner, make notes from every meeting you attend you will be bombarded with information of a daily basis.

5. Accept you will sometimes be wrong– Making the odd faux pas is inevitable. Never hide this, its important to accept your error, as it will demonstrate you are only human and reasonable, and will be beneficial, enabling you to build professional relationships with your students. With that said don't make it a frequent occurrence!

Respect is built through fairness, positivity, warmth, expertise and an ability to inspire and motivate.

6. Plan, PLAN!– one of the single most determining factor into the success of a lesson is planning. Ensure you prepare engaging, challenging and exciting lessons; this is how you develop your reputation. Plan for progress, stretching and supporting all students. Initially plan a sequence of lessons together, so if the students complete all the set work for your intended lesson, you will have back up and extension work. You will hear staff saying I’m going to or winged that lesson, by that they mean they used the resources and plans that they have built up over years of experience. We’ve all been there trying to fill in and adlib for the final 10 minutes, praying for that bell to ring.

Planning will consume the majority of your first year of teaching, but pays off in future years when you will have a bank of resources to use. The 5 minute lesson plan by @teachertoolkit (https://www.5minutelessonplan.co.uk) is useful, although will take longer than 5 minutes to complete initially. It will come into its own towards the end of your training when you are able to refine your planning process, summarizing the key components. Ensure you seek advice and guidance from other staff when planning, you are not alone.

7. Develop your own style – be yourself, watch others, learn from them, but go with your strengths and your true personality when teaching. It is important to be in your comfort zone whilst teaching, you are being observed by 30 students every hour. You will meet and observe staff who are highly extravert and extremely exuberant; some will sing to their classes, and are very captivating. It takes a certain person to carry this off, it this is you great, if not be cautions it can end in embarrassment. Be the teacher you are.

8. Unplug and switch off – it can feel as if the working day is never over, there will always be more books to mark, more lessons to plan, more resources to prepare and more emails to answer. You must have a life, learn to say “That’s it, I’m finished for the day”. A healthy well-being and varied interests outside of work makes you more productive, efficient and an interesting person.

﻿9. Create a physical learning toolbox – simple items that you can deploy, either planned or on the spur of the moment, to enhance engagement or change the pace and learning climate are advantageous. Examples are, Post It Notes (http://goo.gl/tiHvqm), Lego (hundreds of uses), game show buzzers, brilliant for quick competitive group questioning (http://goo.gl/GWPtPp), balloons, Show Me Boards, coloured card, a ball or fluffy animal to use as a throwable question picker, fly swatters use for splat, a stop clock for timing activities, reward stickers. Many more you will build up over the year. Become a frequent visiter to the The Pound Shop, there are so many items that can be adopted into your teaching. 10. Don’t feel you need to reinvent the wheel – your time is limited and valuable, and although producing all your own resources is commendable, adopt, tweak and build upon what is available. There is a huge amount of resources out there to assist you, such as The TES Resources website, which is the first port of call for many teachers. There are thousands of teachers with websites that contain excellent resources, bookmark the best and refer back to them frequently. Amjad Ali (@ASTsupportAAli) has a fantastic website containing hundreds of useful teaching and learning activities and ideas http://cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.co.uk, so does Danielle Kohlman’s Magpie and Try website http://magpieandtry.blogspot.co.uk. Don't reinvent perfect!﻿﻿11. Observe others regularly – use your protected non-contact time to watch other staff teach, from within your department and across the school. Everyday there will be outstanding lessons delivered, by excellent practitioners, observe this, gather as many tips, techniques and strategies as you can. Watch drama, music and science teachers to see how they manage group work and students moving around the class. Watch history and RS teachers to see how they manage discussions, and English and mathematics teachers to gain experience of delivering and enhancing literacy and numeracy.

12. Value and maximize support staff– Use teaching assistants to your full advantage, get to know them, incorporate them in your planning process, they are an extra set of eyes and ears and will take guidance from you. Give them an indication of what will be covered in the next lesson, via your lesson plan or a conversation.Technicians are priceless; from a science teacher’s point of view they are the font of all knowledge, and the foundations of the department, possessing a huge amount of knowledge and experience. Seek their opinion, tap into their wisdom, and ask them to show how to carry out practical’s correctly and safely. ﻿

﻿13. Keep learning – this applies to both your subject knowledge and classroom practice. In your initial stages of your teaching career your personal focus should be on your subject knowledge. There will be whole school training on BfL, AfL, differentiation, marking, feedback and many more. You are to some extent, left alone to develop you own understanding of your chosen subject. Take time to read up on your subject as part of your planning. Subject knowledge is key to becoming an established practitioner, ensure you are the expert in your field. Complete past papers yourself under exam conditions, this will give you a huge insight into what the students are going through, the marking criteria and your level of competence.

Attend TeacherMeet sessions, these are free CPD session organized by current teachers for teachers across the country within region (either a city or county) to share teaching ideas and practices, all of which are free. In some cases you will even walk away with a goody bag!! Sign up, you will walk away inspired.

14. Use social media with moderation- social media such as Twitter has been a revolution to teaching. Each day I find new and exciting methods and resources to use. It extends your access to guidance, enables you to build a network of like minded professionals sharing resources and ideas. Find and follow teachers in your subject, but a word of caution, don't latch onto everything you read, there are thousands of wonderful techniques tweeted each day, you cannot incorporate all of them into your lessons. This is a list of 101 top teachers to follow on twitter. ﻿http://goo.gl/3lpSrw. #NQTAdvice is a useful port of call.﻿15. Use technology - technology will never replace teachers or be a substitute for them, but teachers which use technology effectively will replace teachers who cannot. Students relate well to digital technologies and use them everyday, we all do. Your Year 11's will be younger than iTunes, and have grown up with mobile devices and social media. Used well it saves a huge amount of time, engages students, and prepares them for careers in a rapidly advancing technological society.

16. Go armed with a seating plan - a seating plan will enable you to learn the names of your students quickly, and ensure you establish a productive learning environment. You must have the latest in-depth data of each student when composing your plan, so you can separate undesirable combinations of students, are aware of SEND considerations and academic data so you know how to pitch your lessons. A seating plan is the most fundamental tool in the behaviour for learning toolbox. Do not let students sit where they want; you are in control of the class, you decide where students sit based upon the most effective learning arrangement. Make it clear to the students from the very start, that you reserve the right to move any student, at anytime if you deem them are not working effectively.

17. Be enthusiastic, be positive, be passionate – times will be hard, you may feel that there is no end to the demands of you, but the gusto for what you do is paramount. Your optimistic zeal will spread resonance, priming good feeling within the students you teach. By creating a reservoir of positivity that frees the best in your students, inspires, and arouses a passion within them, will enable you to be successful in ensuring they fulfil their potential, and enjoy the experiences within the lessons.

The following are a collection of activities that I have used to enhance engagement, increase variety and demonstrate student progression within lessons. I've used each of these activities during the term with success and recommend that all teachers build up a toolbox of strategies they have found to be particularly useful to their teaching and are well liked by their students.

2. QR Code Differentiation. Place QR cards on the students desks for them to scan which links to a video or document explaining their mission (objectives) for the lesson which they collaboratively have to complete. Each desk will complete a different structured activity based upon the academic ability of each group. The groups are assigned by the teacher on entry by giving each student a coloured sticker corresponding to a group.

3. Mind-Mapping. At the start of each students draws a mind map to show their level of knowledge and understand of the lessons topic. Throughout the lesson the students independently add to this in a different coloured pen.

4. Question Jenga. Label each of the 48 Jenga blocks with a number, which corresponds to a question. Students take a Jenga block from the tower and then answer the question. If the student incorrectly answers the question take another block. A forfeit is given for knowing the tower over.

5. Drama. Groups of students have to write a short play (~5 minutes long) in which the characters have to discuss a topic or argue a case for or against a contentious issue such as stem cell research.http://www.beep.ac.uk/content/77.0.html The BioEthics Education Project (BEEP) gives a balanced information for debating issues and forming opinions on a multitude of scientific topics. http://www.debate.org/big-issues/ Information of some of the most controversial debate topics covering a wide variety of issues ranging from politics and religion to education and society

6. Charades. Students in small groups have to act out a phrase or key words for the other to guess.

7. Splat. Key words are written on the board students have to smack the correct work matching to the given meaning. Hand swatters are available at a barge price rom internet auction sites or discount stores. Different coloured Post-It notes for each student works equally as well.

8. Scrabble. Students are given or, projected onto the board a number of scrabble letters, which they have to come ups with as many key words relating to the topic as possible in a set time. The students can only use each square once and a price is given to the student with the highest score.

9. Board Game. In small groups the students have to produce a board game or build on an existing one which includes questions and answers summering a topic.

10. Chinese Whispers. In groups of no less than four a definition,statement or chemical equation has to be passed along the line. The last person has to tell the teacher the message. This activity I've used as a competitive game which each group is competing against each other for a prize. The first person is shown the phrase on a piece of paper by the teacher then has to remember this and pass it along. A variation is to pass a question along which the last person has to answer.

11. Activity Timer. A count down timer or stop clock for timing activities. This website has a variety of timers from bombs to egg timers.http://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-clock/12. Picture Round. Place a student infront of the board with a picture or word projected behind them. The other class mates have to describe the the image/word to the students for them to guess. I've used this with groups where each group of five students (one guesser and four to describe) take turns. The winning team is the group who correct guess the most answers in two minutes.

13. What I..... This activity effectively demonstrates progression. Give each student a piece of paper with three column labelled What I Know At The Start, What I Know Now and What I Want to Know More About. The students fill in this sheet at the beginning after being presented with the lessons objectives, add to this during the lesson and then at the end of the lesson before the final plenary.

15. Prezi. Students make an animated Prezi presentation to summaries a subject topic and present it to the class.

16. Padlet. Padlet is an online wall where all students can add comments in real time on one screen. This is very effective and has numerous uses such as a plenary activity where students post comments demonstrating their knowledge and understanding or used to ask a questions where each student can respond and all the answers are displayed. It's also effective as a peer support system where students post questions or queries relating to the task they are carrying out and other students during the course of the lesson add the answers. It's free to sign up and when the students do they name is displayed below their comments. Padlet is not just limited to exit images and even movies can be added and it is compatible on all mobile devices. A BRILLIANT RESOURCE!!http://padlet.com

17. Socrative. Sccrative is a student response system that engages students and feedbacks responses graphically to teachers enabling them to effective differentiate through the lesson and a sequence of lessons. Socrative can be used via smartphones, tablets, computers and laptops. Once an account is set up a teacher can create in seconds multiple choice or open ended questions. The students log in and answer the set questions. the questions can include text or images. Feedback is given immediately to the student and the teacher who on the click of a button can display a spreadsheet of the individual students ability. A very powerful piece tool particularly with BYOD's or 1:1 tablets in schools. http://www.socrative.com

18. Extended Writing Activity. Use the following for students to begin an essay demonstrating their level of knowledge and understanding of a particular subject or topic. This great idea is from Pete Sanderson. A Letter to... Imagine you are a... Write a play about... Write a description of... Describe a journey from... Describe a day in the life of... Predict what would happen if.... Write a diary entry by a person who... Write a set of instructions in order to... You are a news journalist writing about... Write out a conversation between people discussing...

19. Twitter. Set up a Twitter account. Students use their smartphones or tablets to tweet a message of less than 140 characters to answer a question or state something they have learnt during the lesson.

20. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Plenary activity where students can win house points for correctly getting to each monetary level.

21. Beat the Teacher. Students have to ask the teacher a question who in return asks the student a question on the same topic. I allow my students to use their revision guides or exercise books.

22. Liquid Chalk Pens. I purchased these some time ago and have proved to be excellent at getting students to explain key words, draw accurate diagrams or charts and summarise their learning from a topic. I have six different colour pens which the students use to write on the windows producing a display of their learning.

23. No Punctuation. Give the students a few paragraphs of text on a subject or topic and they have to add the punctuation to make sense of the text. I was very surprised that after the students had completed this activity they were highly knowledgeable of the content of the written work they had just corrected. Having no punctuation meant that the students had to read each line more than once resulting in them understanding what they were reading.

24. Giant Chalk. Create giant mind maps or diagrams outside. Students are placed in small groups and given a selection of different coloured giant chalk and an area of the tennis courts and tasked to produce a giant mind map or diagram to summarise their learning.

25. Game-show Buzzers Plenary. Students write questions and the answer on a Post-It Note then one of the group competes with others in a quick fire question round. After five questions the contestants are swapped so all members of the class as quizzed. http://goo.gl/k6EaJM

26. Balloon Starter. Balloons are hidden under tables and chairs before the students enter the lesson. nside each balloon is a piece of paper with a question written on it, the students have to pop the balloon to obtain the question and then answer it. http://goo.gl/3r5bf7

27. Plenary Selector. The plenary grid can be laminated and placed on each desk or printed out given to the students to glue into their exercise books to reference every lesson. The students role two dice and then complete the task selected. http://goo.gl/fknw6y

28. Homework Takeaway. Students pick from the menu the format in which they are going to complete their homework. I've used this for extended homework to revise or summarise a unit or topic, and it works equally as well with both Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 students.http://goo.gl/NqIzfC

29. Balloon Popping This is a fun activity (using balloons always is) used during exam practice for long answer questions such as the QWC questions (quality of written communication) or indeed past papers. Students work collaboratively in groups to answer the extended questions. If the students require support they may pop a balloon off the board. Inside each ballon is a hint or part of the markscheme to assist the students answer the question.http://goo.gl/ZfyXl8

Author

Paul is Head of Science in a secondary school in the South West of England, and a Fellow of the College of Teachers, with an interest in developing new and innovative learning and teaching strategies to enable students to achieve their potential.